Anything but Ordinary(66)

“What made him do it?”

“I told him your story,” Carter said, his chin up. He looked around at her family. “And how the Grahams never left your side, and how they got a miracle.”

“We sure did.” Bryce’s mother leaned her head on Bryce’s shoulder. “We sure did.”

When Bryce pushed away her plate, her dad got up from his chair. “Are you ready?”

“I guess.” Bryce laughed.

Her mom handed her a sweater. They were going out back.

Carter discreetly helped Bryce down the stairs, his hand around her waist. As they passed through the basement doors, she shivered. It was an unusually cold October day.

“Ugh,” Sydney said as they walked, folding her arms over her chest, where the word DUBSTEP was printed in neon pink. “Why won’t winter stay away?”

They came to the barn. Maybe Bryce’s present was more power tools. Thanks to Bryce and her dad, and sometimes Carter, the barn was no longer just patched up, it was transformed.

Bryce’s dad bypassed the door, however, and they followed him toward the pasture.

As they came around the barn, Bryce’s eyes fell on a familiar-looking blue tarp. They had pulled the half-finished plane out of the barn when they started work, but Bryce hadn’t laid eyes on it since then. Her dad pulled the tarp away with a flourish, like a magician revealing a trick. “Ta-da!”

The old two-seater looked pristine, not a bolt out of place. It had been painted deep cherry red, facing a thin landing strip mowed through the dry grass.

“You finished it,” Bryce said in awe.

“I helped,” Sydney said proudly.

“I thought you were doing your homework,” Bryce teased, punching her sister on the arm. She smiled at the thought of her sister and her dad handing each other tools, laying out tape for the paint.

“That too.” Sydney rolled her eyes.

“Alrighty. Let’s do it,” Mike said, taking two pairs of aviator goggles out of his pockets. Everyone turned to Bryce. She watched her sister’s eyes land on the plane, and back to her.

“Sydney should go,” Bryce decided.

“Really?” her father asked.

“Yeah. Sydney gets first ride for her painting job. And her excellent secret-keeping.”

“I mean, I don’t have to.” Sydney fidgeted.

“No, come on, Syd,” Bryce urged. “You know you want to wear those goggles.”

“It’s true.” Sydney grinned and climbed into the plane with their father.

Bryce, her mother, and Carter all stood to the side of the landing strip as Sydney and her father took off. The little plane kicked up dust, sped down the runway, lifting up just yards before the tree line, heading due east as it started to soar. From the ground, they all began to cheer.

Bryce closed her eyes and thought of her father and sister. Through their eyes, she saw it: the hills where the grass was burned gold, the flaming red trees. She heard them whoop at the top of their lungs. And then, like a jewel nestled inside the valleys, she saw the twirling green of a river. The Cumberland? No. The Mississippi.

Through her closed eyes the colors of the landscape bended and looped through one another like ribbons. Whirling through the air, over, under, the water glistening bright. She could hear her father and Sydney shouting and laughing at each other. Bryce opened her eyes.

Finally the plane circled back around and landed, not exactly gracefully, but in one piece.

Bryce’s father hopped out first and then helped Sydney, whose hair was tousled from the wind, her cheeks flushed pink.

“Who’s next?” he said. “Beth?”

“I don’t know, I already did my hair,” Bryce’s mother said, patting it down. Bryce’s father knit his brow.

“Oh, I’m kidding!” she cried. She laughed and climbed in, repeating, “Oh, brother, oh, brother,” as she struggled to wiggle the goggles into place.

As he helped his wife into the tiny seat, Bryce’s father turned back to them with a wink. “See you kids back at the house. Your mom and I might be a while.”

Bryce’s mother blushed and gave a wave. “Ignore your father.”

Bryce and Sydney watched their plane take flight, soaring through the sky. She kept her face turned up, squinting whenever the sun broke through the thick clouds.

She heard her father’s laughter, her mother’s squeals, and caught her sister’s eyes, shining as she shivered in the chilly morning. Sydney tucked her arms into her T-shirt, and Bryce put a hand on her sister’s shoulder, rubbing it to warm her up. They were together. They were happy.

This was where she belonged.





t warmed up later that day, warm enough to see a movie at Big Chief Drive-In. The feature that night was The Searchers. Carter would admit to nothing, saying it was the best coincidence in the world.

The day after Bryce’s birthday it got even warmer, almost hot. Toward evening Carter and Bryce took a trip to Percy Lake, both of them whooping like wild dogs on the big hill. They tucked into the trees and bushes covered in the flames of change, breaking into the clearing, breathing in the sickeningly sweet smell of past-ripe crab apples.

Leaves flew up in the wind, taking little dips to land on Bryce’s dress, then diving off the bluff into the green-patched lake.